Selected Decisions From Mr. Vowell’s Work on Appeal

Although TVA announced that it had suspended the 15-foot rule, and reverted to its prior practices after the first appeal, it really didn’t. It really kept right on clear-cutting the right-of-way, eliminating the buffer zones and cutting down virtually all of the trees in the right-of-way, including vast numbers of 50-100-year-old trees, even after announcing that it had stopped. Unfortunately, the trial court accepted TVA’s assurances in spite of vast evidence to the contrary, and dismissed the case, necessitating a second appeal. In the second appeal, Mr. Vowell again won reversal, forcing TVA to really suspend the 15-foot rule, and forcing TVA to agree to make the required environmental impact statement before it would re-implement the 15-foot rule or any other policy that would remove the buffer zones and other trees in the right-of-way.

In 2011 TVA implemented what it called the 15-foot rule through which it would remove virtually all of the millions of trees in its 15,900 mile right-of-way, including the elimination of its historic buffer zones on the edges of the right-of-way, including vast numbers of 50-100-year-old trees, for the first time in its 76-year history, without preparing an environmental impact statement. The 15-foot rule wreaked havoc, ruining the property of thousands of landowners and leaving a massive zone of destruction and erosion. The District Court dismissed the Plaintiffs’ challenge to this unlawful activity, and the Plaintiffs, represented by Mr. Vowell, appealed and won, forcing TVA to announce that it was suspending the 15-foot rule and reverting to its prior practices. This was a monumental victory for the Plaintiffs which would have preserved thousands of landowners’ property and would have saved millions of trees from senseless destruction.

Mr. Vowell filed this class action in 1988 seeking compensation for thousands of Tennessee landowners after Sprint unlawfully took their land to install its fiber optics cable as part of its nationwide fiber optics network. After winning three appeals to the Tennessee Supreme Court, and one to the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, the case was settled in 2014, 26 years after it was filed. The first appeal established the cause of action and ended with an order that Sprint would be required to pay the landowners for unlawfully taking their land. The second appeal established the viability of the case as a class action. The third appeal shook off the efforts of a nationwide class action group to steal the case. See more just below.

After Mr. Vowell won the third appeal to the Tennessee Supreme Court in Buhl/Meighan v. Sprint (see just above), plaintiffs’ attorneys all over the country began filing similar class actions against all of the major fiber optics companies, more than 80 cases in all. At that point, Sprint, Qwest, WilTel, Level 3, and MCI WorldCom attempted to settle all of the fiber optics right-of-way litigation in the country by means of a collusive settlement agreement with an extremely cooperative group of plaintiffs’ lawyers, a settlement in which the landowners would receive essentially nothing. The settlement was approved by the United States District Court in Chicago, and Mr. Vowell and co-counsel appealed to the Seventh Circuit, which reversed the settlement, leaving the Tennessee plaintiffs free to pursue their cases in their cases in Tennessee. The defendants then filed a petition for writ of certiorari to the United States Supreme Court, which Mr. Vowell successfully defended, preserving the reversal. The cases were then settled.

Five City of Harriman police officers dragged a citizen of Harriman out of his car and assaulting him with Mace after they refused to leave his yard in the middle of the night and he said that he was going to get the mayor. The United States District Court dismissed the case. Mr. Vowell, representing the citizen, appealed, and won reversal in the Sixth Circuit. The case was then heard by the en banc panel of the Sixth Circuit (all thirteen judges), which affirmed the reversal. The case was notable for its 25 page dissenting opinion, which listed some 161 cases that were overruled by the decision. After the en banc panel handed down its decision, the City filed a petition for writ of certiorari to the United States Supreme Court, which Mr. Vowell successfully defended, preserving the reversal.

Mr. Vowell won reversal of the trial court’s dismissal of this federal disability case. The Sixth Circuit held that the employer’s decision to terminate the disability benefits was arbitrary and capricious, and remanded for entry of judgment in favor of the Plaintiff.